Everyone must leave something behind when he
dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall
built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched
some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at
that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you
do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you
touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The
difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the
touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at
all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.
